


Feferi Peixes and Miss Lalonde

by Quilly



Category: Homestuck, Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrell - Susanna Clarke
Genre: Gen, HSWC Bonus Round 3, and rose is determined to cut out her competition, because it's been a veeery long time since i read the book, but elements should be present nevertheless, feferi is an up-and-comer, in which rose is an established magician, includes broodfester tongues, only loosely based on strange and norrell
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-06-29
Updated: 2014-06-29
Packaged: 2018-02-06 18:55:13
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,587
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1868691
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Quilly/pseuds/Quilly
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Rose is well established as the first and only practical magician in England. Feferi is a newcomer rising on the winds of natural talent and public opinion and comes to her for tutelage. Two magicians prophesied to escort an older, wilder magic back into the realm. Based on the book Jonathan Strange and Mr Norrell by Susanna Clarke.</p>
<p>Or, Rose invites someone to tea, someone who has the potential to destroy everything Rose has ever worked for.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Feferi Peixes and Miss Lalonde

**Author's Note:**

> Posting my one fill. :) The original prompt called for Fef in Mr Norrell's place and Rose in Jonathan Strange's, but when I thought about it, it made more sense to flip it around, since I think it fit better. My apologies for probably butchering my remembrance of how magic in the Strange/Norrell'verse works. Also, the "broodfester tongues" I got from typing some general cryptic plotty junk into a Cthulhu language generator.

Your name is Rose Lalonde and your guest for tea has arrived.  
  
Miss Peixes is a lovely young woman, dark-haired and fashionable in her ruffled pink dress. You unconsciously smooth your own bodice and wait for her to drop a curtsy. To your surprise, she holds out her hand.  
  
“I’ve heard ever so much about you, Miss Lalonde,” she says in a high, breathless voice. Charming, your mind whispers, before you gracefully recover and shake her hand.  
  
“Charmed, I’m sure,” you say. “I’ve had tea prepared in the library.”  
  
“Oh let’s do have it on the terrace,” she says, sweeping towards it and the early afternoon sun streaming through. You grit your teeth but nod. What’s one victory here, when there is a greater battle to be won? Besides, if you can manage to have the seat in the shade you will consider it a point in your own favor, which makes the control wrested from you in your own home a mite less.  
  
You settle yourself in your chair, arranging your purple silk skirts around you as Miss Peixes waxes eloquent about your garden. You allow her the pleasantries as the tea is set, returning her comments with gracious thanks. You study her over your teacup. She is purportedly your rival now in the public eye, a young magician with a terrific talent for the craft. Her hands have black stains on them, ground into the fingerpads much like yours, so you think that for all her airiness at the very least she had the sense to crack at the books.  
  
“Miss Peixes,” you say, “I am curious about a few particular details regarding your background. If you would indulge me in a few questions?”  
  
“Of course,” Miss Peixes says, smiling. “I have so many questions for you, as well!”  
  
You swallow the sourness on the back of your tongue.  
  
“Where is your family from, Miss Peixes?” you ask.  
  
“London,” she replies promptly, “though my fiancé and I would very much like to settle in the area. I met him on a trip to Venice, you know. Such an excellent and bohemian source of magic there.” She heaves a deep, nostalgic sigh, and the subtle message is not lost on you. Troubling, very troubling, if she’s been messing about with more heathen forces. You keep your frown to yourself.  
  
“When did you begin your practice?” you ask. “If you began your study from a young age, which I suspect you did, you cannot yet have mastered much by way of spellwork as of yet.”  
  
It’s an underhanded dig at her age, but she does not seem to notice. You wonder if she’s just a silly girl flapping her hands about and misusing whatever gift she appears to have. Not at all the stuff you would expect of your rival, you think to yourself.  
  
“Oh, I’ve had the talent since I was a very small girl,” she says. “The study is a mere formality, I must admit.”  
  
You furrow your brows. You’ve only heard of one other person to be gifted like that, and she got herself into a very nasty spot of trouble from recklessness (fairies, you shudder, are never to be trusted). For yourself, careful study for over a decade preceded your attempts at practical applications, and you made sure to master the books before you even thought of applying them. You had to work very hard before you heard the Whispers.  
  
And this child, this mere slip of a thing, has mastered tricks that took you months to perfect?  
  
“I did have a question about your cathedral spell, Miss Lalonde,” Miss Peixes says, pulling you from your unseemly jealous stewing. “I studied that escapade of yours most thoroughly, yet I can’t fathom how you managed such precision when you yourself were a mile or more off! I myself have difficulties with spells when I cannot see my target.”  
  
You smile. “The art of Seeing, my dear, is my area of expertise, more so than any frivolous song-and-dance number with statues. The spell itself, I admit, was difficult to maintain on account of the distance, but I was able to See the cathedral with very little effort and so maintain the flow for as long as I held it.” You sip your tea. “Can you See, Miss Peixes?”  
  
“I believe that gift passed me by,” she laughs. “However, I can do other neat little tricks.” She nibbles on a raspberry tart. “Perhaps I will show you, one day.”  
  
“Perhaps,” you muse, miffed. “I would be interested in perusing your library.”  
  
“I was about to say the same of you,” she says. “I’ve heard your Grimoire in particular is a priceless treasure.”  
  
“The original text is without compare,” you accede, “but I believe with my additions of the zoologically dubious beings not previously named or recorded, it can become a more complete volume.”  
  
Her eyes widen, as they should. You allow yourself a smile.  
  
Tea concludes, and you show her to your library, brushing the worn spines with something more like tenderness than anything you’ve ever shown for a living creature. Miss Peixes gasps, whirling about like a girl on holiday.  
  
“Oh, Miss Lalonde, it’s simply magnificent!” she gasps. “Surely you must be the most powerful magician I’ve ever had the fortune to meet, if all of this knowledge is in your hands!”  
  
“Yes, well,” you say, both pleased and perturbed, “when one is in communion with Them, one must be prepared with every weapon in her arsenal. These books are my life’s work.” You lovingly caress the spine of your Grimoire, put away for now while you compile your extra pages, and guide Miss Peixes towards your desk. “Here are the pages I am currently writing. I hope to have the companion volume finished within the year.”  
  
She picks up your pages, riffling through them with delight, and then frowns.  
  
“You don’t have a page on Gl'bgolyb,” she says.  
  
“Pardon?”  
  
“Gl’bgolyb,” she repeats. “I never saw her entry in the Grimoires I’ve studied and I don’t see her addition here.”  
  
You have no knowledge of the beast she names, though the crawl across your skin tells you that the creature is real. You master the flare of jealousy in your chest, then wrestle with the dual annoyance that she knows what you do not and is able to cause these feelings in you without even trying.  
  
“I have never heard of such a being,” you say. Miss Peixes gives you a confused frown.  
  
“Oh, you must have,” Miss Peixes cries. “She speaks of you often.”  
  
Your stomach twists. A Whisperer you have never met, and she speaks of you?  
  
“Both of us, actually,” Miss Peixes says carelessly, setting down your pages. “But the words are not mine to repeat. I’m not even sure if I could.” She takes your hands, suddenly very serious, and you resist the urge to take them back. “Miss Lalonde—Rose, if you will let me be so bold—I think there is a great work to be done here, by you and I.” Her fingers bite into yours. “I do not know why Gl’bgolyb does not speak to you yet, but I am sure she must, as I am sure that the moment I met you I knew you are the magician I am meant to learn from.” She looks earnestly into your face. “Allow me to become your apprentice. Teach me what you know, before all is lost.”  
  
You feel sick. You draw in a deep breath, and, to be safe more than out of any real concern that Miss Feferi Peixes is more than a madwoman, you pull your hands free and go to unearth your Orb. The Orb has very little power on its own, but you, through it, can accomplish such wonders even the books you adore have not thought of them. You open yourself to it, pour yourself into it, and feel the shadows in the library thicken and twist.  
  
You take the name given and you feed it into the blackness, searching, invoking, ignoring all else, because your skin is pale and grey and your eyes begin to glow. With your physical eyes you see Miss Peixes has not shrunk back or cowered beneath your might, but instead has an open, hungry face, as though she is drinking you in. You are both enraged and enthralled.  
  
You speak the name she gave her own monster and you feel something stir in the deep, something  
  
 **Yuia ha'a thaftftag na, tu Gl’bgolyb ha'a thuna**  
  
Your mind is weak as paper before her might, your strength but a drop in her ocean, you want to scream and are crushed, you see her many arms and her curved beak and you know despair.  
  
 **Tha'a ut g'aas ghu'k su gu, nx Ruta.  
  
** **Tugasha' ghush Fara'u xuia ghuftft ft'ung su latt a ghuftgnatt ialun sha ftang. Yuia ghuftft lia'ga us ang ftx guung ta'a us. Mx gaiaghsa't, nx ghuftg unat, sha'a ut ghu'k su fta guna ha'a ialun sha aa'sh.**  
  
  
 **Mx Ruta. Mx Fara'u.**  
  
  
 **Tha'a ut ghu'k su gu.**  
  
You…you understand.  
  
You are allowed to release your hold on your grimdark throes, you are allowed by her mercy to return to your own body, and as you sway you drop your Orb. Miss Peixes—Feferi, if you can return her boldness—catches you and guides you into a chair before you topple.  
  
“My dear,” you say, your voice weak but your soul on fire, “we have work to do.”


End file.
